Chapter 27 #3
I feel something cold and terrible settle in my gut. Because she isn’t telling me anything I haven’t already thought or feared. She’s just doing the favor of saying it out loud.
Celeste’s voice softens. “I don’t say this to hurt you. I say it because I think you deserve the truth.”
I laugh weakly, tears burning again. “And what truth is that?”
“That you are passing through his life,” she says, cupping my face sympathetically with her hand. “Not building it.”
Gregg steps through the ivy-covered archway just as Celeste slips past him in the opposite direction.
Gregg’s gaze follows her over his shoulder as he stumbles around the corner of a rose bush.
A flicker of concern tightens his features, then he turns fully to me.
His face changing the moment he sees me.
“Cam…” His voice drops, careful as if he were approaching a wild animal. “I’m so sorry about what happened back there. What did she say to you?”
I swallow, but it doesn’t help. My throat is tight as if I’d been crying for hours instead of minutes. “It doesn’t matter,” I admit, though it does. Fuck, it matters so much.
He takes a step closer. “It does matter, babe. It matters because you’re sitting here like someone’s just—” He stops himself, flexing his jaw. “Just, please. Tell me.”
I look up at him, his hair is slightly wind-touched, his beautiful green eyes so open and worried, his whole body angles toward me like I am the only person in the world.
He makes something inside me give way. The tears come again, hot and silent.
“I don’t belong here,” I whisper. “And it’s not a foreign feeling. ”
“Hey, hey. What are you talking about? Of course—”
“No. I don’t,” I repeat. “I don’t belong here, Gregg. In this world.” I gesture toward the manor beyond weakly. “I can’t do whatever that is.”
Gregg’s eyes flash. “Then don’t.”
I let out a shaky laugh that's not humor at all. “You say that like it’s that simple.”
“It is,” he insists, stepping closer and dropping into a crouch in front of me so that we were eye to eye. His hands find mine, warm and steady as always. “But where is this coming from?”
My breath hitches. “You’re not ready,” I state, my voice breaking. “You’re not ready to choose yourself, or me…”
The words land like a slap, and Gregg goes still. His expression hardens with pain, but the hurt sharpens into anger so fast I almost don’t recognize it.
“You don’t get to say that,” he declares tightly.
I flinch, and he stands abruptly, pacing a single step away, dragging a hand through his hair. Like he needs space to keep from falling apart.
“You don’t get to come here,” he says, voice low and trembling with restraint. “You don’t get to come here, come into my life, and be with me this whole week across Lochaven and London, tell me you love me, and then decide tonight that I’m, what? A lost cause?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I whisper.
“Yes, it is.” He turns back to me, his eyes bright, furious and wounded all at once. “You promised me. You promised me that you would be patient with me navigating being myself fully, if I was patient with you as you navigate your grief.”
I shift on my feet unsteadily, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. That’s true, I did promise that. “I want to be patient. But back there, you couldn’t even acknowledge that I was even a friend!”
“Then be patient!” he snaps, the sharpness in his voice cracks at the end. “And I’m sorry. That was wrong on my part, but you don’t understand my position here.”
“You’re right. Maybe I don’t understand the whole picture, but I do know what it's like to lose relationships over being gay. Even relationships you don’t even care to foster.”
His eyes go wide with hurt.
“How many times have you talked about how awful and smothering your family is? Your dad? I can’t understand why it matters so much to you.”
“Because I’ll lose everything!” he hisses, stepping forward and taking my hands in his. “My position. My contracts. Inheritance. Everything!”
I wrench myself from his grip and step back, shocked. “Your inheritance?” A long silence settles between us. “You are okay with losing me, or having me be in your life secretly, because you’re afraid your dad will disinherit you?”
Gregg’s eyes search mine, desperately trying to recover. “I, Cam… That's not what I… I’m sorry. Of course not.”
“Wow, okay.” I turn and step away from him, shaking my head, my breath shaky. A few minutes pass between us, a few minutes of me trying to make sense of what we’re even doing here. What am I doing here? “I don’t think I can see past that, Gregg.” I sniff. “I can’t see past tonight.”
He was in front of me in three strides. “Cameron…” He takes my face in his hands. “I love you.” He kisses me longingly in the shadows of the garden, and though my knees go weak, I pull away.
“Let’s face it,” I say as I take his hand in mine and place it on his chest. I hate myself for how cruel the truth is going to sound when spoken aloud. “You’re destined for so much, Gregg. You’re—” I gesture at him helplessly like words are not enough. “You’re you.”
His mouth parts, a stunned and confused look spreading across his face.
“And I’m just a flight attendant,” I continue, voice breaking, “that spilled coffee all over himself in a crowded airport.”
His face crumples for a split second before he masks it, swallowing hard. “You didn’t spill coffee on yourself, I caused it to land on you.”
I huff out a laugh through a small sob.
“That’s not who you are,” he adds fiercely. “Don’t you dare reduce yourself to something small only because you’re scared.”
I laugh again, wet and broken. “I’m not scared. Or reducing myself. I’m just being realistic.”
“No,” he disagrees, stepping closer and pulling me into him. “You’re being cruel to yourself. And to me.”
I bury my face into his chest and inhale him for what would most likely be the last time. I want to create a memory, remember him for eternity. When I try to step back, he takes my hands and holds them between us.
“Don’t do this,” he pleads, his voice raw with emotion. “Please don’t do this.”
The word please almost undoes me completely.
I look at him and see everything. The boy who grew up in this cage, the man who learned to perform.
I see the version of him in Scotland, laughing in the woods like the world loosened its grip.
The version of him in San Francisco, dancing with me on that pier.
I see the future I want, and at the same time see the future I know will probably destroy us.
I lift my hands to his face, trembling. I cup his jaw, feeling his warmth, the pulse beneath his skin. “Gregg…” I whisper.
He leans into my touch like he needs it to survive. And I kiss him.
It isn’t gentle or careful. It’s a kiss that tastes like grief and love and surrender.
It’s a goodbye neither of us is ready for.
Gregg makes a broken sound against my mouth and kisses me back like he’s trying to rewrite the ending.
His hands slide to my waist, holding me tightly, like if he held on hard enough I wouldn’t be able to leave.
When we finally break apart, our foreheads stay pressed together and his breath shakes. “So that’s it?” he whispers.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them, the world is blurred with tears. “I love you,” I admit, my voice barely holding together. “I love you so much. Thank you for that.”
“Then stay. Please,” he begs through shiny eyes.
My heart shatters at the simplicity of it. I shake my head once, devastated. “I can’t. I can’t hold you back or expect you to choose between two lives.”
I lift my hand and place it over his chest, feeling his heartbeat hammering beneath my palm. “Dry your eyes,” I say softly, sniffing, forcing steadiness into my voice like I could will it into existence. “Please.”
Gregg swallows hard, his throat barely working.
I step back, but keep my hand on him for one more second, like I need to memorize the feel of him. Then I let go.
I turn toward the path that would lead me back to the lights, to the people, to the world that would keep moving no matter what it took from us. But before I go through the archway, I glance back at him one last time, swallowing my emotion and wiping tears from my face.
“There will probably be some kind of toast for you,” I say, my voice cracking on the words. “Some speech about legacy and success and Wilmont and how amazing you are.”
Gregg doesn’t move. He looks wrecked.
“I’m proud of you,” I whisper.
His eyes squeeze shut.
“And I love you,” I add. I need him to hear it again. Like it might protect him from what came next. I take a breath that feels like a swallow of broken glass. “But I think…” My throat tightens. “I think it’s time for me to go home in the morning.”
Gregg’s voice is barely audible when he answers. “Cam…”
I don’t let myself stop. Because if I do, I won’t leave.
And if I don’t leave, I will spend the rest of my life waiting for him to choose me in a world that never would.
So I walk back toward the terrace, tears drying cold on my cheeks, the garden behind me swallowing the sound of my heart breaking.